Law enforcement authorities in the U.S. still need a warrant to listen in on your phone calls or to read your emails and text messages. But they don't need your permission or a warrant to track who you call, who calls you, who you text, email or vice versa. Plus, your activities on social media sites like Facebook are also fair game -- all in real time.
And the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said that kind of surveillance of Americans' electronic communications has exploded in recent years. The ACLU contends that even if this monitoring does not include the "content" of those communications, it is yet another invasion of citizens' privacy.